


The Force Has (No) Favourites

by Ewok_Poet



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Evil Wins, F/M, Gen, Slavery, palpatine is dead in this one, podrace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 22:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13374300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewok_Poet/pseuds/Ewok_Poet
Summary: In a world where the invasion of Naboo succeeded, a young woman sees her chance...





	The Force Has (No) Favourites

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pandora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandora/gifts).



Dormé was making her way through the crowd at the Chla C'cHaan Stadium.  Her long, violently violet gown was rustling in the wind. As a member of the highest caste of the Human hive #14, she got to wear the best velvet and silk, fabric peppered with gold mined from her planet’s three moons. Thought the supervisor job at the remote offices of the Banking Clan and those pesky BD-3000 droids messing with the records were stressful every now and then, there was nothing major for her to complain about.

 

The young woman could not hide her excitement – it was the anniversary of the day Naboo was restructured and made so much better. Who could believe that it had already been ten years? The great leader of her people, the Trade Federation Viceroy and the Supreme Ruler of the Purse Worlds, a great politician by the name of Nute Gunray, was to give a speech to all of the Human and Gungan hives and reward the best traders in the top castes with their own starter companies in the “Lake Business Hive”, which apparently used to be called the “Lake County”. On the same event, the animals brought from the Federation’s Factory World of Geonosis were to slay the weakest younglings from all the hives, as a warning for everybody else to prosper and plan one’s future from the earliest days at the youngling hall.

 

She was slightly late. Once she sat in her lounge on the second level, a young Gungan female on a hovering platform slowly rising above the centre of the arena was reciting the most uplifting passages from the Encyclical on Historical Greatness. She should have picked more comfortable shoes, or a shorter gown, but that was not an option – the status was all that mattered. The lower castes had nothing but respect for the members of the higher ones, those who knew that their future was a clear, beaten path with no thorns. They were probably slightly jealous as well. But, if nothing else, the two sentient species of Naboo were  _certainly_  higher than the Narquois and therefore privileged.

 

The youngling disappeared behind the improvised stage at the end of the performance. The audience clapped ecstatically. As the next part of the programme, the  _Lucrehulk_ -class Droid Control Ship hovering in the sky above Theed dispatched an army of battle droids, who then performed a simulation of a planetary defense and executed a couple of hundred pickpockets, felons and adulterers. The crowd seemed to be even more excited, with everybody cheering, “Roger-roger! Roger-roger!” A couple of pudgy Gungan younglings in red and golden-brown Youth Commerce robes were snickering loudly a couple of seats close to Dormé, but their parents showed them to be quiet and bribed them with some goldcoin toffees. The troublemaker duo recognised the noseless face on the foil of their sweets and instantly went quiet. They did not want to lose their place in their parents’ caste for misbehaviour, so they promised to each other that they would never laugh at the battle droids again.

 

The Supreme Ruler and his right hand, a young and muscular Zabrak male wearing a luxurious pantsuit with an open tunic showcasing his enviable chest muscles got up, to the crowd now going completely out of control. Dormé smiled broadly and grabbed her silverpink opera-goggles to take a better look at the man every single unmarried woman from her caste wanted to make mad, mad love to. His name was Maul and he was as much of the beautiful body of the New System as Gunray was its cunning mind. And nobody minded that his eyes would occasionally emit a flash of golden yellow. That was likely a known mark of his species’ handsomeness.

 

The young businesswoman zoomed in closer, having noticed that there was a fellow female on Maul’s arm. The idea that he had been taken filled her with bitterness, but a closer look revealed a chain in his hand. A brunette woman in dirty rags, with three birthmarks on her cheek, and a collar on her neck, was kneeling below her master. Her face was pale, her facial scars were nasty and her hair had clearly not seen anything resembling a brush for ages. It was a dirty, hideous creature, fit to be the handsome Master’s humble slave. For some reason, though, her empty eyes, surrounded with dark circles, sent a shiver down Dormé’s spine: there was a striking, albeit not clear similarity between this shamed woman and herself. Was the very spirit of Chla C'cHaan playing tricks on her mind?

 

What further intrigued Dormé is that this woman remained on her scabbed knees, while Gunray and Maul got up to wave to the audience. There was a moment when she was about to lose her balance, or so it seemed, but then Maul’s beautiful eyes flashed yellow, he pulled the chain and pointed to a black saberstaff hung at his hip. The woman swallowed a lump and stepped back. She was not to make a scene during the ceremony.

 

The next thing the crowd knew, the two leaders had a surprise for them – a podrace featuring the best pilots from the new purse-worlds in the Outer Rim. That was a dangerous sport and racing those rancors of vehicles in the arena modelled after the one on the Factory World was going to be nothing but a mere exhibition. About a handful of males of all species and one Theelin female were now waving to the audience themselves, the audience responding with another jovial, “Roger-roger.” Dormé glanced to the side discreetly – the two little rascals were not laughing this time. They seemed to be surprised, though.

 

“Keep it quiet, you swamprats!” she muttered through her teeth.

 

“We are sorry, Mistress! But Anakin Skywalker and Sebulba have a chance for yet another…another rematch here.”

 

She must have heard those names before. Skywalker…Sebulba…oh, that’s right – their rivalry was the most famous of them all. One was from Malastare, the other from Tatooine – one Dug (whatever that may have been) and one Human. The latter was pretty popular among the women of lower castes, or so she heard. She zoomed in on him with her opera-goggles. He had sandy-blond hair and yes, he was quite handsome. There was something about him that made her think of Maul, but she could not quite pin-point what it could have been.

 

The next couple of minutes were but a blur.

 

The “Bettybots” left their place at the side of the pod racers, one of whom appeared to have patted one on her bottom. One of the Human males stopped chatting to the Theelin female, who then ducked her hotpink hair under the safety helmet. The over-enthusiastic Gungan announcer wearing a simple-looking vest pointed to a transparisteel trophy case and said that the winner was going to have the great honour of choosing one of the three head-shaped statues. They were all of cloaked Human men – one younger, with a large mole on his forehead, one middle-aged with streaks of long hair now embodied in gold and one of an older man, whose smile was bordering on a sneer. Skywalker appeared to have been wanting the third one, while the rest of the racers seemed more than happy to have any of the three.

 

Dormé wondered if those were cast from real severed heads at any point. She glanced at Maul again. He was patting the weapon on his hip again, giving a knowing look to Nute Gunray. But she did not have the time to think about this further – the race had started early. Apparently, the Gungan announcer was too clumsy and this resulted in the Theelin woman’s podracer piling up against all but one of the others. The other eleven were now ablaze, with the most eccentric-looking one flying up in the air and heading straight to the lounge where The Supreme Leader and Maul were sat at.

 

Dormé put her hands on her mouth, trying not to scream. Maul extended his hand and the beat-up podracer crashed right before his feet, hitting the droidekas protecting the governing body of the Trade Federation, with the loudest of the bangs. After the initial explosion shook the grandstands and the smoke cleared, she was relieved to see Gunray and Maul safe.

 

Seconds later, the med droids were at the case. They pulled the racer out alive – it was the arrogant and handsome Anakin Skywalker, or what had remained of him. The racers that piled up were gone – there was nothing but burnt carcasses. The Gungan announcer had no choice – he waved the red and chequered flag at the same time, then dropped both and put his hands over his eyestalks. He could not bear the carnage before him!

 

“IT ALL MESA FAULT! IT MOOIE MOOIE BAD!” he blurted out into his repulsor-microphone and then ran to the site of the crash, before a couple of battle droids stopped him and instructed him to go back to his place.

 

The situation had escalated, indeed.

 

Despite this, Sebulba the Dug was jumping around parc fermé on his front legs, has had apparently won the race. He was most clearly eyeing the head-sculptures. It would have been hard for him to pick one. Some of the crowd was chanting for him. Roger-rogers, and more and more roger-rogers. Even more roger-rogers.

 

However, Dormé didn’t care about that. Apparently, there had been another causality. Maul’s rag-clad slave had been hit by debris from the foolish Skywalker’s vehicle. Whatever had hit her, apparently, suffocated her. She fought for air for a couple more minutes and then closed her eyes.

 

The sight of the woman lying in the foetal position next to Maul’s feet was upsetting to Dormé, even though she never cared much about the slaves. For some reason, she felt that this was to impact her performance at work. Another thing that intrigued her was the handsome Master Maul seemingly inquiring about Skywalker’s health and being somewhat unfazed to hear that the Human would survive, but that all of his limbs were severed and that he was badly burned. In fact, he seemed…happy about it?! She leaned over the railing to take a closer look at him, hoping that she would have been able to read his lips.

 

And that was when he let the med droids go and walked right up to her. Her heart was beating faster than ever before in her young, successful life.

 

“Is everything in order, young woman? You have come close to the scene and you have… these eyes… and hair and I have been wondering…” He paused, uncharacteristically and then shook his head. “Sorry, I was thinking about going to see that unfortunate young man tomorrow, I had lost my repulsortrain of thought. Either way…I recognised your garbs. Are you from the Banking Clan? The supervisor who told the chancellor Finis Valorum that we don’t recognise his "credits" here?”

 

Dormé bowed and responded with a sheepish smile. “Yes. It’s a great honour to talk to you, my Master.”

 

“The pleasure is all mine.”

 

“Do you think so…?”

 

“Why, yes. You too seem shaken by this unfortunate carnage.”

 

She had to react fast. “Yes. I was… afraid that the debris would hit you and… disfigure you!”

 

“That would have never happened, but I  _do_  understand that you were worried for my safety. So…”

 

“So?”

 

“Would you like to join me at the Supreme Ruler’s annual banquet and make sure nobody else attempts to harm me?

 

Though, at this point, her mind had been screaming an avalanche of loud “yes” and “kriffin’ great”, Dormé again bowed to Maul and muttered a shy, “Of course, my Master. That will be a honour.”

 

“Then, let’s go.”

 

“Yes, let’s go.”

 

Two “Bettybots” escorted the pair to Maul’s speeder. A small smile curved Dormé’s prune-tinted lips.  _Perhaps this was the day she was to show those other women what she was made for, after all_ …


End file.
